The present invention relates to a press having a loading device, wherein the press is configured particularly for pressing the pressing product forming residual or recyclable materials, such as used paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, foils and the like, and has a press housing comprising a pressing chamber, having a loading opening for feeding the pressing product and a pressing shield displaceable in the pressing chamber, wherein the loading device comprises at least one rotatably driveable rotor roller equipped with conveying prongs, wherein by means of a rotation of said roller pressing product can be conveyed from the outside of the press housing through the loading opening into the pressing chamber. Furthermore, the invention relates to a device for opening and emptying good pieces.
The use of baling presses is widespread for reducing the transport volume of recyclable materials. For example, such baling presses are used to press cardboard, foils or like packaging material. Commercial enterprises often use so-called vertical baling presses. Usually, these vertical baling presses comprise three stationary side walls which are, in turn, permanently connected to a base plate; the fourth lateral wall has a lower door which closes the pressing chamber and can be opened for removing the bales and an upper door which optionally clears or closes a loading opening. During operation of the press, the doors are closed. At its top, the pressing chamber is limited by the press shield which can be vertically displaced therein and remains at the upper end position while the pressing chamber is being filled.
Theoretically, the pressing chamber can be divided into a pressing region and a feeding region. To fill the press, the upper door closing the feeding region is opened and the pressing product to be pressed is placed in by an operator. This door of the loading opening can also be a part or section of the lower door for the pressing chamber. The upper door which acts as feeding door can be swiveled either about a horizontal or a vertical axis.
Where vertically operating baling presses are concerned, the pressing product to be pressed is inserted into the pressing chamber through this feeding door and stacked onto pressing product already present in the pressing chamber until the feeding space no longer provides any space for further pressing product. Thereafter, the upper door is closed and the press is started. After the pressing cycle has been completed, the operator can again insert pressing product into the pressing space. If wanting to feed pressing product for more press cycles than one, the operator always has to wait for completion of the press cycle before he can continue feeding thereafter. Since the quantities that can be refed are always small, the filling procedure is, occasionally, delayed over a prolonged period of time, thus being time-consuming and cost-intensive.
A further disadvantage must be seen in the fact that, while the upper door is being closed, pressing product still projecting through the loading opening and beyond the pressing chamber to the outside either impairs or, in the worst case, even prevents the closing of the feeding door, with the result that projecting pressing product must again be removed.
To eliminate these disadvantages, different technical solutions facilitating the filling of baling presses have been proposed. For example, the Applicant's earlier German Patent Application No. 10 2007 013 382.2 describes a device for producing pressed bales wherein, initially, a collecting space disposed outside of the press is filled, with the content of said collecting space then being dumped or pressed into the feeding region of the baling press by means of the floor of the collecting space, said floor being designed as a swivel plate. Therein, the swivel plate also forms the upper door of the pressing chamber.
Although this device normally provides a facilitated feeding procedure, machines of this design keep causing problems in practice. On the one hand, these problems can occur if the collecting space is overfilled with excessive quantities of pressing product because, in this case, the swivel plate cannot be closed completely any longer. If the pressing shield is now moving down to press the pressing product, pressing product possibly projecting through the loading opening and into the pressing chamber gets between pressing shield and door, this perhaps leading to an excessive stress of guides and drive elements of the pressing shield. On the other hand, an excessive quantity of fed pressing product possibly has a negative effect on the bale density; practical tests have shown that there is a positive correlation between the number of press strokes and the bale density with otherwise equal parameters.
DE 76 25 603 U shows a baling press with a feeding shaft and an infeed chute disposed therein for pressing product to be pressed. Spaced apart upwards from a loading opening of the pressing chamber, a rotatably driveable rotor with digging teeth is disposed at the lower end of the chute, the primary task of said rotor being a loosening of the pressing product and the secondary task of said rotor being a reduction of the pressing product to a certain degree. Therein, the direction of rotation of the rotor is such that, at a clear side of its circumference, the rotor conveys the pressing product in an “overhead” manner and hurls the pressing product against the wall of the feeding chute. From there, the loosened pressing product falls down through the loading opening and into the pressing chamber by the force of gravity. Herein, an optimum, i.e. dense, filling of the pressing chamber is not achieved; on the contrary, the purposeful loosening of the pressing product even generates a particularly loose filling of the pressing chamber with a low density, this increasing the number of press strokes required for one pressed bale and resulting in a low operating speed of the press.
DE 26 12 483 A1 shows an extrusion press with a loading device, which comprises two knife shafts which are disposed in parallel to and on top of each other, engage each other and are rotatably driveable in opposite directions. Together, the knife shafts form a cutting unit which is fed with pressing product via a feed table, said pressing product, for example, being paper material. The cutting unit pushes the cutting material delivered by the cutting unit through an outlet chute and into the pressing chamber where it is then compacted by an extrusion punch. This is to disadvantage in that two knife shafts having their own bearing means and having a drive driving both shafts are required, this resulting in a high technical complexity. What is more, the pressing product rubs against the chute walls in the outlet chute, this friction impeding the transport of the pressing product through the outlet chute and not allowing any efficient loading and filling of the pressing chamber.